Over 12,000 Gauteng pupils didn’t write matric, and the dept doesn’t know why

Answering a question posed in provincial legislature by the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Khume Ramulifho to Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, the Gauteng Education Department (GED) revealed that the province has a total of 12,287 pupils who were full time pupils but didn’t write matric.

The department also admitted that it has no way of tracking pupils who moved to another province, transferred to another school within the province or dropped out of school, and that it hasn’t attempted to find out why those pupils didn’t write matric.

In answer to Ramulifho’s request for the reasons why so many pupils didn’t write matric, the department said it “has not conducted a formal research on the causes for the learners failing to write the examination”.

The reason for pupils not writing the exams in Gauteng as planned “are not specifically identified and tracked by the department”, the reply further stated.

What the department does know is that the head count for Gauteng pupils for the 2018 academic year was 115,307, and that 107,166 ended up writing, meaning that 12,287 learners failed to write the examinations for unknown reasons.

When contacted for comment, GED spokesperson Steve Mabona made it clear he had nothing to say that wasn’t in the department’s official answer to Ramulifho’s questions.

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“If we responded in the legislature, what more can we say?” he told The Citizen.

Ramulifho told The Citizen that Lesufi attempted to take a “shortcut” and avoid answering the question he tabled.

“I’m putting him in a corner,” he said.

“The systems they have in place to track learners, whether you get transferred to another province or country, he is not prepared to share the info,” he continued.

“In some instances children fall pregnant and the schools ask them to leave, even though the policy says that this shouldn’t happen and that all learners should be given an opportunity to write matric,” he further claimed.

Ramulifho brought up The SA School’s act, which considers the attendance of school by young South Africans compulsory.

“We should not pass laws we cannot enforce,” Ramulifho suggested.

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